Borussia Dortmund Name Explained: Ballspielverein Borussia 09 e. V. Dortmund
When it comes to football, teams are really given their full title. Say ‘United’ to most people and they will know exactly which team you’re talk about, in spite of the fact that there are countless ‘Uniteds’ playing the sport around England, let alone the rest of the world. Liverpool are never called ‘Liverpool Football Club’, in spite of that being the club’s official name.
The same sort of things happens in Germany, such as Bayern Munich only being described as ‘Bayern’ or FSV Mainz 05 simply being named ‘Mainz’ the majority of the time. In the case of Borussia Dortmund, there are numerous names the club is given, but what do they all mean?
Starting with the ‘Borussia’
To the majority of the footballing world, the club is known as Borussia Dortmund. Sometimes that is simplified to merely Dortmund or even just Borussia. In reality, the club’s full title is Ballspielverein Borussia 09 e. V. Dortmund. The question is, what on earth does all of that mean? We will start by looking at the first name, Borussia.
Dortmund isn’t the only club in Germany to boast that word as part of the club’s title, with Borussia Mönchengladbach also having it within their title. What many people might not realise is that it is the Latin word for ‘Prussia’, which is a former European state that was made up of most of Germany.
It’s always crazy to me that the vast majority of Prussia, the founding father of modern Germany, is no longer part of Germany pic.twitter.com/RjLe3OOBzB
— François Valentin (@Valen10Francois) October 17, 2024
In addition to a large section of Germany, Prussia also comprised some of Poland, Lithuania and Russia. The capital was in Berlin, with Prussia being one of the European superpowers in the 18th and 19th centuries, with its military might allowing for the unification of several Germanic states.
It was largely responsible for the establishment of Germany as we know it today, more or less. Nationalism grew as Germany became more and more of an industrialised state, with the country become more powerful globally, with that nationalism also becoming an important part of certain football clubs, which chose to have Borussia in their name.
#1 victory royale, yea BVB we ‘bout to get down
— Borussia Dortmund (@bvbofficial.bsky.social) 2024-09-14T15:42:21.209Z
In the case of Borussia Dortmund, that isn’t actually the main reason that the word features in the club’s title. Instead, a group of young men grew unhappy with playing football under the watchful eye of the local priest and so set up their own club as a protest.
They met at a bar named ‘Zum Wildschutz’, which was located at 60 Oesterholzstrasse where a sign for the local brewery, Borussia-Brauerei, was up on the wall. The meeting itself had been somewhat rushed, so the suggestion of using ‘Borussia’ in the club’s title was little more than the convenience of it being a word that could easily be seen by all concerned.
Ballspielverein & e. V.
The explanation of some parts of the club’s name is much more simplistic. The ’09’, for example, is a reference to the year in which the team was formed. What is much less easy to understand to English audiences is the Ballspielverein, simply because many of us don’t know German.
If you were to use a translation app, however, you would soon discover that ‘Ballspielverein’ simply translates to ‘ball game club’. In other words, it is just the German equivalent of an English team having the words ‘Football Club’ attached to it, nothing more. In fact, German people might well wonder why others are fascinated by it.
Meanwhile, the e. V. Is a reference to the legal status of the club. The German ‘eingetragener Verein’ translates to ‘registered association’ or ‘incorporated association’ and is often abbreviated to e. V. It is a legal status for a voluntary association that is registered in Germany.
Any group can be called a ‘Verein’, but becoming a registered one allows some legal benefits to be conferred upon the organisation, with the addition being that the ‘e. V.’ must be mentioned in the name. In Germany, the term ‘association’ can be used interchangeably with ‘society’ and ‘club’.
@footballfacts765 DORTMUND⚽⚽⚽#foryou#foryoupage#fyp#viral#learnontiktok#facts#football#soccer#dortmund#music
The interesting thing is that Dortmund is obviously a ‘for profit’ organisation. The fact is that it is a ‘registered association’ for professional football, as well as other popular sports and countless social initiatives.
Boasting more than 200,000 members, it is one of the largest sports clubs anywhere in the world. As well as being strongly committed to working in the realm of youth development, the club also takes its social responsibility seriously.
Why the Club is Known as BVB
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, the chances are high that you will know that Borussia Dortmund are often known as ‘BVB’. In German it is pronounced as ‘bay-fow-bay’ and is simply the initials of part of the club’s name.
When you break the club’s title down into its constituent parts, which is to say Ballspielverein – Borussia – 09 – e.V. – Dortmund and translate it it becomes Ball Game Club – Borussia – 1909 – registered association – Dortmund. The acronym that the club is often known by comes from the first two words of its name:
BallspielVerein Borussia
You might wonder why it is BVB rather than BSVB given the breakdown of the word. The answer is that ‘Ballspielverein’ is a contraction of two words: Ballspiel and Verein. That is to say, the first B is about the fact that it is a ‘Ballspiel’, or ‘ball game’ and the V is pointing out that it’s a club.
Add in the fact that the ‘ball game club’ is based in Dortmund and you get BVB. For the sake of completeness, here is what the club’s other nicknames mean:
- ‘Die Borussen’ – ‘The Prussians’
- ‘Die Schwarzgelben’ – ‘The Black and Yellow’
